attenuators we like?

nickp

I was reading the AC30 thread and also ICBM's dissection of a crap attenuator with interest

so this is the 

"what attenuators do we think are good" thread.

cheers

stickyfiddle

Very relevant to note which amps work well with what too.

I really liked my home-built Brake-Lite, used with a Rivera Clubster 25.

xscaramanga

As I said in the other thread, I love the Motherload Elemental. I've used this with a Marshall 2061X and a JCM800 2204. 

I also like the Weber Minimass (tried with Marshall 2061X and Fender Princeton). There have been a few different Minimass cases (don't know if there are internal differences). Mine looks like this:

I don't like the treble boost though. I just leave it flat. With my Marshall 2061, that sounded fine. If you've got an amp that's 25 watts or less, the Minimass is a good deal (especially if, like me, you get it for a steal in a forum trade) and the selectable impedance is a real bonus. If I ever find myself with too much cash burning a hole in my pocket, I'll get an 8 ohm Motherload, because currently I have a 16 ohm and I can't use it with my Fender, which is a pain.

Somewhere I still have recordings where I A/B tested the Minimass and Motherload with my Marshall. I'll try to find and upload them. I made the recordings and never actually listened back to them, but I remember in the room at the time I didn't notice much difference between them. The Motherload can take a 100 watt Plexi on 10 without breaking, though, which not many attenuators can boast.

hywelg

Hotplate works well down to -8dB with Fender type amps. -12dB at a push. Not much good with EL84 amps, OK'ish with old school Marshalls provided they are setup to run cleanish and you hit 'em with pedals.

jellyroll

I have the Swart night light which seems quite good for having a bit more oomph at home volume.  I haven't had another attentuator so can't compare. 

ecc83

Just like to point out that a power soak makes an excellent DIY project.

The parts are relatively cheap (case is probably the biggest outlay!) and personal safety is 99.9%, burnt pinky being worse case. Danger to the amp is very low so long as you meter* the finished product before use and make secure solder joints.

If you have a low power amp, 5-10 watter you can make a very simple soak to feed a soeaker and a line level recoding output. Even incorporating a hum loop busting transformer adds very little cost (I have two to donate..FC,FS)*Essential. Do not even THINK of such  a project without one!

Dave.

nickp

 @ecc83 - do you have a link to some reliable kits/plans?  I think if I made one I'd ask @icbm to test it first!!!

ICBM

hywelg said:

Hotplate works well down to -8dB with Fender type amps. -12dB at a push. Not much good with EL84 amps, OK'ish with old school Marshalls provided they are setup to run cleanish and you hit 'em with pedals.

Be careful with a Hotplate and a Marshall if you do it the 'standard' way with the power stage cranked - they don't like it, especially with the Deep and Bright switches on. You can fix it by deliberately mismatching so the amp is set to half the impedance of the Hotplate. However I would be wary of buying a new Hotplate at all now, since there have been problems with the later ones, and their warranty support is beyond hopeless. It does work very well with Fender and Mesa-type amps though.

The Marshall Powerbrake is still hard to beat for Marshall-type amps. It's a shame they discontinued it, although it's not rare second hand. It doesn't have the best reputation for sound quality, but I think wrongly so. It's also well-made despite its quite crude appearance.

The Airbrake is very good, and seems to work particularly well with non-negative-feedback amps (eg AC30) but has relatively low power handling - not enough for a 100W amp. I was much less impressed with the Brake Lite, which seemed severely overpriced and didn't sound as good either.

I tried an early MiniMass and was not impressed by either the build quality or the sound, but they may be different now, since they don't even look the same. I haven't tried any of the bigger ones.

The Motherload Elemental was the best I've tried for the widest range of amps, and has by far the best emulated DI sound of any device like this I've used, but also appears to be out of production.

The "Ultimate" you all know my opinions about now .

I haven't tried any of the more recent ones - I'm perfectly happy with my Powerbrake and a couple of own-made dummy loads, so I haven't really bothered to keep up to date.

Blacksheep

I have used and owned Hotplate, Brakelite and Swart Nightlight. I'd chose the Brakelite out of those. I've done hundreds of pub gigs with attenuators and I believe that is where they work best - taking a few Dbs off a cranked amp. At bedroom level they give you the wasp in a bottle. If you compare my Marshall heavily attenuated to the Marshall tone on the THR10, the lunchbox is streets ahead.

xscaramanga

Blacksheep said:

At bedroom level they give you the wasp in a bottle. If you compare my Marshall heavily attenuated to the Marshall tone on the THR10, the lunchbox is streets ahead.

Interesting. Not the case at all in my experience with the 2204 and Motherload vs THR10 'Brit Hi' setting—I'd take the attenuated Marshall eight days a week. Not even close. So not even close, I'm thinking about selling the THR10.

ICBM

Blacksheep said:

I have used and owned Hotplate, Brakelite and Swart Nightlight. I'd chose the Brakelite out of those. I've done hundreds of pub gigs with attenuators and I believe that is where they work best - taking a few Dbs off a cranked amp. At bedroom level they give you the wasp in a bottle. If you compare my Marshall heavily attenuated to the Marshall tone on the THR10, the lunchbox is streets ahead.

If that comparison was vs the Hotplate I could understand it. It's just a very bad combination with Marshalls, especially at heavy attenuation. I haven't tried the Brake Lite with a Marshall but it was quite poor at its lowest setting with a Fender Tweed Deluxe.

The odd thing is that the Hotplate was fantastic with any Mesa I tried it with, except the Blue Angel which also absolutely hated it… though to be fair, I never found one that sounded any good with it so it's more the amp than the Hotplate probably!

cosmiccarrot

I've had a fair few brands (even the cobbled together UA!) of attenuators and the only one I've always hung onto is the powerbrake (one standard, one modded) for my marshalls and decatone they just sound the best, couple of notches down and eq to the room and away you go.
I did pull the corksniffers plug last year and buy an Aracom DAG and can safely say it's amazing, gets lower than anything I've tried yet and tbh I wouldn't really look at another attenuator now. Although the Fryette power station is a tease but as far as I can tell that's a slave/load set up that they've cleverly/bravely decided to market (although it can be done at a fraction of the cost with a good loadbox and a lineout).

kizzer

I use a Weber Mass 100. Switchable impedance (2,4,8 and 16ohm) , 2 speaker outs + a pre-attenuated line out with independent volume and tone knobs.

Great bit of kit, ran an experiment reamping the same di'd guitar through it on different settings, once I volume matched the files in Protools I found no difference in the sound until I got down to the most extreme settings.

Danny1969

The other guitarist in one of my bands use's one of these so he can turn his 5 watt amp up full at the pub gigs we do 

DI is very, very good 

simonk

I have a BrakeLite that lives permanently in the back of my 18w Rift blues breaker type amp. It works stupendously in that application but I didn't like it with any of my fender type amps. I have the Swart night lite too in the back of a Space Tone 'verb/trem, but I don't think that much of its attenuation capabilities.

ecc83

nickp said:

 @ecc83 - do you have a link to some reliable kits/plans?  I think if I made one I'd ask @icbm to test it first!!!

Not really. I have some scribblings somewhere and a "lashup" I did for son. There is no need to get IC involved! Just make sure you have a load about twice the rating of your amp and of about the right resistance or a little higher (according to IC's lights). Middle for diddly 8 Ohms would be happy with say 10? Pro rata for the other Zs.

The allyclad style resistors are almost impossible to blow, they will stand about 1000% overrating for 1 second! Biggest problem is that the case gets hot. Very hot with a big amp so DON'T stand it on "her" occasional table!

Rule One for Electronic Projects: You always need a bigger box than you were expecting. Rule Two: This counts DOUBLE for load boxes!

Dave.

Wazmeister

I differ from ICBM here in that I REALLY liked my Dr Z Brakelite. In fact, im not using it at the moment but hang on to it just in case.

I had the £500 Jim Kelley one and thought the Brakelite was superior...

ICBM

Wazmeister said:

I differ from ICBM here in that I REALLY liked my Dr Z Brakelite. In fact, im not using it at the moment but hang on to it just in case.

I maybe didn't give it a fair test - it was mounted in the back of a Tweed Deluxe copy and I didn't try it with anything else. But it went... full - very slightly quieter - very slightly quieter - a lot quieter and dead-sounding - off. Not much use at all really.

It also seemed very overpriced considering the extremely low component count and complexity, which totally put me off it and makes it difficult to justify trying with any other amp. It would maybe be more impressive at half the price. (In my opinion.)

JohnPerry

I've had a few: from memory a little Palmer, a Weber Minimass and the Sequis Motherload Elemental and while the Sequis was easily the best I decided they were all a compromise and all robbed tone a bit (or a lot). I can get a way better sound at low vol now using a magic combination of pedals into some great amps.

andy1839

I like my Rivera Rock Crusher. Works well with all sorts. 8 or 16ohm, bright and bass boost switchy things, controls that feel like they would last forever. Downside is its massive. Like an amp head. Sat there. Looking ridiculous and massive and purple.

Babones

I owned a Brake Lite and eventually sold it. I still have a Swart Night Light, which i prefer. I think the Brake Lite is better suited to live playing, however, when you have to shave off just a bit of volume. Night Light for home though.